Part 1.

George was worried. The Author and that helmeted guy who called himself Raistlin (although George knew that couldn't be his real name) had been arguing again, and the helmeted one had taken the Author down this hallway, laughing gleefully... saying something about going home at last.
Finally reaching the end of the hall, George opened the door. He was just in time to see the helmeted Author disappear into a swirling portal. He must have taken the Author with him, back to his home dimension! It was up to George to save him! Without a second thought, George jumped into the portal to rescue his friend.

"At last!" Helmut said cheerfully. "Home sweet home... I don't know how Dave managed without me!" He suddenly noticed George lying at his feet. "What the hell are YOU doing here?!"
"Uh..." George struggled to think up a plausible excuse. "Um... I thought the portal had ice cream in it?" He'll never believe me, George thought.
"You and your ice cream," said Helmut. "Not that I don't enjoy a pint of evil ice cream myself, but..." He looked at George, and George felt that Helmut was looking him over thoroughly. "Hmmm... Now that I think about it, you'd make an excellent addition to the team of Alternate Daves..."
"What?" asked George, not quite sure if he was hearing Helmut right. Me? An Author?
"Yes, you an Author." Helmut smirked. "More precisely, part of the Author, as you call him -- me -- us -- whatever. You might as well call him by his real name, Dave, now. After all... you're going to be really close."
"Wait," George said, struggling to keep up. "I didn't say that, did I? I was just thinking..."
"Shared mind," Helmut said. "Specifically, Dave's."
"I'm in his mind? How?" George had been in strange situations before, but this was definitely going to make the top five. "And why are you suddenly being so nice?"
Helmut smiled, only somewhat evilly. "It's good to be back home and reunited with my positive side! But you're right, I'm being too soft. Don't worry, I'll make up for that right now." He vanished, leaving George to wonder what he was going to do now.
"Great," said George, looking around. Dave's mind was filled with a purplish mist, and it was hard to make anything out exactly. "Well, now what do I d-" He looked down, and saw that his old suit now had purple gloves and boots. "Wait... since I'm now part of Dave's mind, I get his powers, don't I?"
"Right-o!" said a strange figure, beaming in. It was Freakadave.
"Who are you, anyways?" said George.
"I'm Freakadave!" said Freakadave proudly. "And I'm here to welcome you into the Author's mi- Ahhhhhh! My anus is bleeding!" Freakadave ran off.
"That was... weird. I wonder if Dave's got any other weird things in his mind?"

Meanwhile...
"BWAHAHAHAHA!" the Author laughed from his incorporeal state above the panels. "And now, I will unleash a new era of pain and-- No, I won't!" He struggled to regain control; re-integrating himself with his dark side was evidently not going to be as easy as he'd thought. If he'd had a face, his inner battle would have been plain on it. "I am a good Author, I am a good Author, I am a good Author..." he muttered to himself. "I am... sorta hungry, actually." With his typical Pfoof!, he entered corporeal form. "Man, I could really go for some ice cream all of a sudden..."

"Purple haze, is in my brain..." George sang quietly as he wandered through what turned out to be a street. For now, at least-- things seemed to be constantly shifting here. The mist around him reminded him of the time when he'd been standing next to Chadling when Mega Man had activated the nanobots, although the mist here wasn't as thick.
That was funny... he could vaguely remember waving his hand and commanding Chadling and... himself? to explode. Almost as if he'd been Mega Man at the time... but the memory was faint, and George pushed it aside.
"Well, let's test out to see if I've got any of those nifty author powers..." He held up his arms and concentrated. PFOOF! "Awesome!" said George gleefully.
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Meanwhile, Dave went to Dr. Light's lab to visit everyone. Bob was there, and he looked worried. "Hey, Author, did you see George anywhere? It's a bit weird for him not to show up when there's ice cream around..."
Author shook his head. "No, I'm afraid no- wait, did you say ice cream?"
"Well, yeah," said Bob, looking at his closely. "Hey Author, are you feeling all right?"
"Yeah, just fine. Never felt better and... hey Chadling!" Dave ran up to Chadling and patted his back. "Hey man, want to go to that new ice cream parlor down the street?"
Chadling looked confused. "Uh sure... I never knew you liked ice cream, Author."
"Are you kidding? Love the stuff!"
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Meanwhile, Helmut was sitting on a purple couch watching TV. "Man, I can't remember the last time I sat on this thing... good to be back."

George took a lick of the ice cream cone he'd just summoned. Not bad for a first try, he thought. Now if he could only get out of here and use these powers in the real world...
He realized that he didn't know how to get out, or even if he could. "Oh nutbunnies..."
Well, he thought, as long as I'm here, I may as well see the sights. Noticing a large building next to the street, he decided to go in and check it out.

Must... resist... urge to destroy... Fortunately, the Author's dark side wasn't acting up right now, but he didn't know if he'd be able to keep control if it did. He had to fight it; he had to be a nice person.
And right now, the Author couldn't think of anything nicer than getting some ice cream with Chadling.
"Hey, thanks!" Chadling said, licking his triple fudge cone. "It just doesn't feel right without George, though. Have you seen him?"
"I don't know where he is," the Author admitted. "But I've been thinking about him a lot. He's been on my mind ever since I... well, since a few hours ago."

George peered down a hallway in the building. "Hello?" he shouted. "Anyone home?" There was no response.
He looked around. The walls were decorated, if that's the word, with crude drawings of people. As George walked down the hall, he realized that the badly-drawn pictures were looking more and more like him... or how he used to look, before coming to the Megaman Universe.
At the end of the hall, a final picture was hanging. It was definitely a picture of George as he used to look. Under it was the caption, GEORGE - FINAL DESIGN.
George stared at it in shock. "Oh my god... This must be where I was designed!" Now he knew why X had felt so uncomfortable looking at himself under construction. And at least X was a robot, and was used to the idea of having been created by somebody... George had never really understood that before.
"Wow," said George, looking at his design. "That's very... creepy... I think I'm going to get out of here."
He went down another hallway, again filled with crudely-drawn pictures. As he went further and further down, he began to realize: these were all pictures of Bob. "Dear God," he said, staring at a picture with very badly blurred red firey hair, "Is that really how dorky we looked?"
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"In fact," said Dave strangely, "I can't seem to stop thinking about George. And I've had a strange, irrational fear of being hung from the ceiling. Huh." He licked his ice cream. "So you don't know where he is, Chadling?"
"Nope, not a clue."
Dave nodded. "Hmm... this certainly is interesting... does anyone else know where he is?"
"Not that I know. Want some more ice cream?"
"No thanks," said Dave. He had to find George: he needed him for the next storyline.
"Look," Dave said as he stood up, "I've got to go find George. See you later." With a Pfoof!, he teleported himself back to Light's lab. There was a coffee break going on, and everyone was generally milling around.
"Hey," he said, "have any of you guys seen George lately? I can't find him."
"I saw him just when that helmeted guy was leaving," Mega Man said. "He was running down a hall. Do you think the helmeted guy might have had something to do with him disappearing?"
"That," Dave said grimly, "is a very good question. I'm going to go have some... words with him." Instead of leaving in his usual effect, he seemed to collapse in on himself and implode; Mega Man watched with some interest, then went back to doing nothing in particular.

With another PFOOF, Dave landed right in front of Helmut. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded Helmut. "I'm trying to watch "All My Evil Children", if you don't mind!"
Dave glared. "Okay, what did you do to George?"
Helmut looked shocked. "Hey buddy, he followed me, okay? He should have known that entering your mind would make him part of you, okay?"
"What?" Dave couldn't believe it. "So THAT'S why I was craving ice cream today," said Dave.
"Yeah, yeah. Could you scoot out of the way now?"
Dave did so, still looking at Helmut. "Do you know where he might have gone?"
Helmut shrugged. "Beats me," he said. "This place is so damn big, it's hard to keep track of anything."
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"You know," George quipped, looking around, "This whole Author gig isn't so bad." He had just summoned up a pile of ice cream, and was happily munching away. "In fact, if I wasn't so alone in here, I would be perfectly hap- That's it! I'll open up a portal and bring Chadling here!"

Dave was about to leave and start looking for George, but one thing about this encounter struck him as unusual. "Wait a minute," he said to Helmut. "How did you get TV in here? And is it cable or satellite?"
"Well..." Helmut didn't look away from the TV. "Let's just say, you don't want to know."
"I was afraid you'd say that." Dave left Helmut's room, heading out into the street.
"DON'T say thanks or anything," Helmut said sarcastically once he was gone.

"Okay, one more try..." George raised his arms and summoned up his new power. "Here... goes... nothing!"
Sure enough, there went nothing. George collapsed to the floor of the Bob-themed hallway, exhausted. "This is no use. I can't seem to get out. Maybe I just don't completely understand how to use these powers..." He hoped that was it, at least.

Dave looked around. "Helmut was right, this place is pretty damn big." He put his hand to his head. "Hmm... if I were George, where would I go? I know! The ice cream parlor!" He headed off.
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George thought a bit. "Hmm... maybe what I need to do is start small." He held up his arms, concentrated, and went PFOOF about one foot away from his old spot. "Well, I guess that's a start..."
"You know, it's pretty easy once you get the hang of it," said a familiar voice.
"Dave?" said George hopefully.
"Nope, I'm still Freakadave."
"Damn," said George.
"So," George said, hoping that this 'Freakadave' would be a bit more helpful this time around, "who are you, anyway?"
"Well, like I said, I'm Freakadave." The blue-skinned oddball pointed to the "F" symbol on his shirt, which reminded George of his old Blitz outfit. "I'm the side of Dave that does wild and crazy stuff... theoretically. In practice, his 'normal' self does enough strange things, so I don't get to do an awful lot. One time I even got upstaged by a singing dog."
Whatever, George thought. This didn't sound terribly likely...
"It really happened!" Freakadave protested. "I can show you the animation if you want..."
"No, that's all right, you don't have to," George said quickly. Of course; shared mind, shared thoughts. He'd forgotten that part. He briefly wondered if he could tap into that himself, but realized that he didn't really want to know what the likes of Freakadave and Helmut were thinking.
"At any rate... can you help me or not?"
"Help you what? Help you make pink rainbows rain down from the sky?"
"No," said George, who was starting to get exasperated. "Can you show me how to teleport out of here?"
"Uh..." Freakadave hesitated. "I think that only the mods can do that."
At that, George blew his top. "Mods? MODS? THis isn't a chatroom, dammit! This is Dave's mind, and if I don't get out of here, I swear I'll go insane!"
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Dave, in the meantime, was still sitting at the ice cream parlor. "Hmm... he doesn't seem to be here. Well, all my options are gone. Where on Earth would he go if not here?"

That did it. George started screaming for the one person he knew could help him. "Dave? Dave! DAVE! AUTHOR?!" He had to be able to hear, George reasoned; after all, this *was* him, right?

Dave was still waiting in the ice cream parlor, trying to keep focused. He was here to look for George, not to order a butterscotch ripple sundae... as if he didn't already have enough trouble dealing with the Helmut side of his mind, now he had George in there too. Any more of this, he thought, and I'm going to need group therapy.
He heard someone screaming from a distance away. "That sounds like George!" Dave said, jumping up. He left the ice cream parlor, following the screaming down the street.
"DAVE! DAVE! AUTHOR!" Dave came running into the Bob hall, panting and out of breath. "George?"
"Dave" said George, relieved. Now maybe he could get out of Dave' head. "Are you here to send me back?"
Dave hesitated. "Well... um... to tell the truth, I hadn't thought about that."
"What?" George held his arms up again. "Do you mean to tell me that you don't know how to get me out of your own head?"
"Well, I didn't even know you were in here until about ten minutes ago," admitted Dave.
"Impossible," said George, sitting down. "If you can't help me, who the hell can?"
"Well... Helmut got you in here... maybe he can get you out."
"Helmut?"
"Helmut."
"I'm doomed," said George.
Dave felt worried and angry, but couldn't figure out why for a moment; then he realized that those emotions were coming from his new George side. "Will you calm down?!" he said. "Look, why don't you tell me what's been going on here. Helmut told me some of what happened, but I don't really trust him, even if he is me..."
"Well," George said, "he took you to that room at the end of the hall and said something about going home, and then I chased him and saw him entering a portal, and I thought he was from another dimension or something and was taking you there to torture you... I really had no idea that portal led to, you know, YOU."
"Okay," Dave said, putting the pieces together. "The problem is, you've become... integrated into my mind. I can't just separate us and send you on your way. But I need you for the next storyline... you and Bob are supposed to be rescuing Mega Man from, well, I probably shouldn't tell you too much. But I don't know how you're going to do that when..." He gestured helplessly. "You know."
George sighed. "Fine," he said reluctantly. "Let's go see Helmut." After all, he reasoned, at least he had Author powers now, so he and Helmut might be on an even footing.
"Okay, let's--" Dave stopped. "Wait, you've got WHAT?!"
"...your powers," George said out loud. This was going to take some getting used to.
"Great Scott!" said Dave, quoting from Back to the Future. "I knew that I'd have some of you integrated into me, but I'd never in a million years have expected you to have some of me! In fact," he said, looking worriedly at George, "This might also mean you've got some of Helmut in your system, too."
"Huh," said George disinterestedly.
"Anyways, let's go see Helmut!" Dave put up his arms, and with a PFOOF, both of them were in front of Helmut's TV screen again.

"Oh for the love of Satan! What the hell are you doing back here again?" said Helmut, pretty pissed off. "And I was just about to see who got kicked off of Evil Survivor, too."
"This is important," said Dave. He held up his arms, and the TV turned off.
"Well, it'd better be important," said Helmut, glaring.
"Ahem," started Dave. "At any rate, it seems that George has gotten stuck in my mind. Since he's become far too integrated for just my powers alone to get him out of here, I need your powers as well. And possibly Freakadave's."
"Did someone call me?" quipped Freakdave.
George became very worried. "On second thought, you know, it's not so bad here, nice place, really, it grows on you!" Don't subject me to Freakadave's powers, he hoped fervently, not Freakadave, not Freakadave...
"Hey!" Freakadave said sharply. "Knock it off! I'm not THAT bad, am I?"
"Sorry," George said, trying not to let himself get angry. The local thought police were definitely starting to get on his nerves.
"Hold it!" Helmut said. "Why do we have to get rid of George? I have a plan... er, a fondness for him." He clapped George on the back; George winced, hoping that Helmut could feel at least some of his pain.
"He can't stay here!" Dave protested. "I need him back in the comic!"
"Oh, is that all?" Helmut said. "There's a much easier way than separating him entirely. After all, you can manifest me in my own body, and I'm more integrated than George is. That would be a lot less work for everyone, especially me."
Dave thought about it. "He's got a point. It would only be a temporary solution till we get this whole thing sorted out, but at least we could get the next storyline done."
"Sounds good," George said. He was itching to use his new powers in the real world.
"OK then." Dave raised his arms. "One manifestation, coming up!"

George felt a strange tingle as he felt Helmut manifest himself in the real world. He could see and hear everything Helmut could, and hopefully have some level of control over Helmut, too.
The coffee break was still going on. Helmut went up to a loudspeaker, as started shouting into it. "All right, coffee break over. Everyone get into position for the next storyli- hey is that ice cream?"
George had been itching to have some actually ice cream for a while. Since he had about half control of Helmut's body, he used this power to his best advantage. "YAAAAHHH!" he yelled, diving head first into the ice cream. Everyone started to stare.
"You fool! What are you doing! I'm eating ice cream! No! Must... struggle... to regain... evilness..."
"Is it just me, or is Helmut going insane?" whispered Megaman to Protoman.
"That's it!" Helmut managed to say. "THIS isn't what I meant!" Fighting George's ice cream urges, he managed to raise his arms and teleport...

...back into his living room. He and George were standing next to each other again, much to George's relief. Helmut stepped forward angrily and grabbed Dave by the collar.
"You know damn well what I meant!" he said. "I meant give George HIS body, not mine! God, I've only been back for a few hours and already you're trying to trick me into leaving! You promised you'd let me stay this time..."
Dave released himself from Helmut's grip. "As it happens, NO, I did not know that was what you meant. And I was just trying to give myself room to think in here, without you constantly trying to make me evil! Let's not forget who's in charge here."
"And YOU!" Helmut yelled at George. "You humiliated me in front of everyone! Look, I honestly think you've got potential. But pull another stunt like that, and you will find your life becoming VERY unpleasant." He folded his arms and glared at everyone.
"Shut up!" Dave said. "Can't you see George has enough problems as it is? Look, I'll just make them forget that ever happened. All right?!"
"Er," George said hesitantly, "now that we have this little misunderstanding straightened out, can I go now?"
"All right, all right." Dave sighed and raised his arms. "Take two..."

Pfoof! George found himself back in the real world, and rid of Helmut for the time being. Looking down at himself, he saw that he had his own body again, but his outfit still had the purple gloves and boots. He ran a hand through his hair, and was relieved to feel its familiar sproinginess.
George smiled. "Now this is more like it." He headed for the ice cream, and noticed Chadling standing next to it. He must have come back from the ice cream parlor... wait, when was that? George was sure he remembered being at an ice cream parlor with Chadling earlier that day, but couldn't put his finger on when. Oh well...
"Hey, Chadling!" he shouted, running to greet his friend. "You'll never guess what happened to me..."
"Hey George!" said Chadling, looking at him. "Hey, what's with the new color scheme?"
"That's exactly it!" said George happily. I got stuck in Author's mind, and now I've got his powers!"
"Really?" Chadling's eyes widened. "Hey, could you summon up some ice cream for us?"
"Sure thing!" said George. "Watch this!" He snapped his fingers, and a huge pile of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream appeared.
"Awesome!" said Chadling. "I always knew you'd be a great friend." They started chowing down.
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"So, am I forgiven?" Dave and Helmut were eating evil tortilla chips, watching TV.
"Yes... for now," said Helmut. "By the way, these are really good evil tortilla chips."